


Kiss Me Once Again

by ShowMeAHero



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 18:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18610108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: Steve’s quiet for a moment, then says, “I’m sorry, Buck.”“Why?” Bucky says. “It’s been half a minute for me.”





	Kiss Me Once Again

**Author's Note:**

> that's right, motherfuckers, we're fixing this.
> 
> Title taken from ["It's Been A Long, Long Time"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FBypHZ2rJs) by Bing Crosby.

Sam passes back by Bucky, the shield secured firmly on his arm. He stops beside Bucky, hesitates a moment while he just stares at the shield. After a beat, he looks to Bucky.

“It should be yours,” Sam says. Bucky shakes his head.

“It  _ is  _ yours,” Bucky says. “It was never mine. Captain America is an ideal, and that’s you.”

“Thanks, Barnes,” Sam replies. Bucky almost smiles, looks back out at the water. Well, moreso the man on the bench on the shore of the water.

“Don’t mention it again.” Bucky claps Sam on the shoulder. “I’m serious. Never bring it up again.” He squeezes his shoulder, then releases him, walking to sit on the bench beside Steve. Steve glances at him.

“How old are you now, anyways?” Bucky asks. Steve laughs. It’s a rasping sound, but still so fundamentally Steve underneath the unfamiliar age. Bucky finally gathers the strength to look at him, and the eyes are the same. His face is the same, just older, lined, his hair fading to white, his body pulling down and in with age’s gravity.

“Peggy and I did the math once,” Steve says. “Born in 1918, went in the ice when I was twenty-seven, out of the ice for twelve years, then went  _ back  _ to 1945, and here we are.” He sighs, rubs his hands together. “So, about one hundred and seventeen, I’d suppose. This July.”

“Damn, I think I’m only one hundred and six,” Bucky replies. “Give or take a few icings myself.”

Steve’s quiet for a moment, then says, “I’m sorry, Buck.”

“Why?” Bucky says. “It’s been half a minute for me.”

“Peggy.”

Bucky looks back out to the water. “Ah.”

Steve reaches out and takes his hand. “You were already gone. I couldn’t change that.” Bucky lets Steve run his thumb over the back of his hand. He  _ feels  _ old, fragile, paper-thin. Steel underneath, though. Classic Steve. “But I could find her.”

“You always did love her.”

“Don’t do that,” Steve says. “You know I loved you, too.”

“It was different.”

“It wasn’t.”

Bucky looks up at the sky and exhales, slowly. “You’ve always been a brat. Twenty years old, hundred and twenty years, doesn’t matter. Same dumbass on the inside.”

Steve laughs again, squeezes Bucky’s hand. He’s still just as strong, it seems.

“How much longer you got?” Bucky asks, even though the question terrifies him. Looking at an old Steve is unsettling. Sometimes, he dreamed about it, but he  _ wanted  _ it,  _ wanted  _ to see Steve make it to old age, because it so often seemed he would die young. Seeing it now, though, Bucky would do anything to turn back the clock, to send them back to the 1930s, to working on the docks with him and walking on the boardwalk and sharing their shitty apartment in Brooklyn. Life was easy. It was  _ good. _

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” Steve says. He looks at Bucky; Bucky can see his head move in his peripherals. “I’ve lived a long life, Buck. I’ve done a lot. And I always knew I’d come back here, and when I saw you, just now… I think I want to do it again.”

“A third chance for Steve Rogers,” Bucky comments.

“Probably more like fiftieth,” Steve replies. “Regardless. Peggy’s been gone for a few years. Our kids—”

“You have  _ kids?”  _ Bucky whistles. His chest hurts, even through the bravado. “Rogers, you gotta prioritize information when you’re telling me stuff.”

“I’ll get to it,” Steve says. “Our kids are adults. My grandkids, they’re growing up.” He’s still looking at Bucky. When he’s silent, Bucky finally looks back. “But you.”

“What about me?” Bucky asks, when Steve doesn’t continue.

“You’re the same,” Steve says. “Still young.”

“Hundred and six,” Bucky repeats.

“So young,” Steve says, reaching up with his other hand to touch Bucky’s face. He strokes his hand through Bucky’s hair. “I want what we couldn’t have then.”

Bucky’s heart thuds, flops over. Steve’s hand presses into his cheek, cups his jaw. “What are you asking?”

Steve smiles at him, then moves to stand. Bucky grabs him by the elbow, helps him up; it’s just like when he was little, and sick, and needed Bucky’s help. Bucky’s not sure who’s helping whom, anymore.

“When we first tested the machine for the time heist,” Steve says, and Bucky’s brow furrows, “we accidentally did something to Scott.”

“What’d you do?” Bucky asks. Steve doesn’t answer, just motions for them to move back to Bruce, and they do. Bruce claps Steve on the shoulder; it seems like he nearly knocks him over, but Steve doesn’t so much as flinch.

“Remember what we did to Scott on the first try?” Steve asks. Bruce only takes a second before a grin breaks across his face.

“What’d you do to Scott?” Sam asks. He’s still got the shield on his arm. Bucky gets it.

“Get in, Steve,” Bruce says, and Steve squeezes Bucky’s forearm before using him as leverage to climb up the stairs to the pad of the device. Bruce hands up one of the suit pieces, and Steve straps it on, slams the button, and the suit covers him in an instant. He gives Bruce a thumbs-up as Bruce is recalibrating, and Bruce gives a thumbs-up right back before slamming one of the buttons. Steve vanishes, just for a brief, terrifying moment, and then reappears, thirty years old again. Bucky’s fingers curl up into a fist, his metal arm silently whirring as his knuckles tighten.

“What the  _ fuck,”  _ Bucky says, emphatically. Steve removes the helmet and the suit falls away with it; he’s still wearing his soft old-man sweater underneath, and Bucky grabs him, hugs him tightly. He fists his hands in the back of Steve’s sweater, tucks his face in the crook between his neck and shoulder. “Jesus Christ, you should be dead a thousand times over by now.”

“We both should be,” Steve reminds him. His hands are wrapped up in Bucky’s jacket, holding him tightly. His face is buried in Bucky’s hair. “Good thing I’m so damn lucky.”

“Oh, is that what this is?” Bucky asks. He pulls back, and Steve cups Bucky’s face in his hands.

“God, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you,” Steve says. For Bucky, it’s been five minutes; for Steve, it’s been a lifetime. “Can we do it all again?”

“Are your kids gonna be happy that you’re twenty years younger than them?” Bucky asks. Steve laughs.

“They’ll think it’s hilarious,” Steve says. “You know, I named one of them after you.”

Bucky’s chest hurts. He pulls Steve back in and says, “Let’s just start over.” Steve nods against his head. Everything feels strange; there’s so much he doesn’t know, so much he’ll never understand. Steve has lived lives without him, Bucky has lived lives without Steve.

“You’re thinking too much,” Steve says. “That’s a first.”

Bucky laughs. Doesn’t matter so much the lives they lived, in the end. Matters what lives they have now.

**Author's Note:**

> let's talk about endgame, guys!!
> 
> I also actually wrote some books! It was a long road but, I did it! Ta-da! If you want to read either of them, shoot me a message!
> 
> I have a blog now to request imagines - I just like to make people happy. Submit requests [here!](https://imagine-in-the-fandoms.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


End file.
